THE WINTER GARDEN

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Gathered in the garden ready for cooking chicken broth is wild three cornered leek, cut and come back celery (a plant that is two years old and doing great) and oca which I have been growing for some years and which is a Peruvian root vegetable.

Due to all the rough weather we have been experiencing lately, and also due to the indoor work which we were completing I had not been much in our garden to check on things and certainly did not do any work in it. But between the two latest storms I did go out and took stock of what needs doing and what is growing right now and it seems that we have quite a bit going for us, there is more food to be found there than at first one would think. And so I have become encouraged and excited to get going. I plan to grow as much as I can fit, because my plan is to preserve some surplus harvest and to that end I bought some Kilner jars today. When I was growing up every housewife used to preserve a variety of foods in those jars. My mother did this until she was well in her eighties.

  • Dandelion root and oca
  • Last year’s spinach among the three cornered leeks
  • Young nettles
  • Winter greens – kale
I found lovely fresh and young nettles growing at the back of the garden. I was reminded recently of how wonderfully full of minerals and vitamins this plant is and I mean to make more use of it this year, even for tea but also in soups.
  • Young sprouting chives, I am very happy to see these as they suffered last summer
  • And young dandelion leaves, if we only half knew how nutritiously valuable this plant is, we would use it a plenty
I am very happy to see that the dandelions are going to be as plentiful as always. I mean to use a lot of them. Even our canary birds like this wild plant 🙂
  • A young broad bean plant
  • And elephant garlic is sprouting too
I planted a number of broad beans in late autumn, too late really and several were eaten by none hybernating slugs or snails, but two or three plants survived and that has got to be good.
  • Three cornered leek
  • Celery that just keeps growing
The few celery plants that we have in the garden are the type which stay green and grow even during the winter, you just cut leaves off the plant and let it go on growing. I love celery I use it especially in soups.
I am chitting our potatoes, last summer my grandchildren and I dug up the potatoes that I had grown, the excitement this caused was so much fun that I decided to grow some more this season!
  • Thyme growing real well this winter
  • Mediterranean oregano
The herbs have also grown very well during the past winter months despite some frost. The oregano especially is very lush and I love using it in the kitchen. The thyme and rosemary too are thriving, and so is the sage. As well as that the lemon balm, hypericum, tansy, sorrel, and comfrey are all coming up beautifully.
I hope that wherever you are that your gardens are growing well too and that my friends in the UK have not been affected by the most recent floods and storms.

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